KELSEYVILLE – Half-inch-tall children skate around a magnetized ice skating rink, play tug-of-war and brave the snow to play in a tree house in Michael W. Taylor”s Kelseyville home.
They can also be glimpsed inside the lighted windows of a school, a library and houses that make up a miniature village Taylor sets up every Christmas in his 20-by-25 foot front room.
Guests are welcomed in a smaller family room on the other side of the house for approximately a month out of the year, while Taylor sets up 49 lighted, ceramic buildings, approximately 100 figurines, a train set and elaborate scenery on plywood, tables and boxes that take up more than half of the room.
“I don”t think I ever grew up,” Taylor said.
Taylor spends time in the room, often with only the lights in the buildings and around the table on, thinking of how he can change and improve the little village. He said he often has to drill holes in the buildings he and his friends and relatives find in order to add lights, as he did with a police station and a train station his neighbor bought for him at a garage sale this year.
He even installed a single bulb in the overhead shade of a tiny fruit stand that sits in a snow-blanketed courtyard. The scenery changes every year as Taylor adds pieces and makes improvements.
He said his mind is constantly thinking of how he can use ordinary items he finds in stores, or household items, often in ways his relatives don”t at first understand.
“You have to see it to understand what I mean. When I see something, I think how I could use it in the village before I throw it away,” Taylor said.
Taylor used white correction fluid and ink to convert a train station to a “tram” station this year. The tram is Taylor”s latest addition. He used pulleys from a 20-year-old VCR to move passenger cars suspended on plastic-coated wires above the little town to the topmost elevation of Taylor”s living room landscape, where a tiny ski lodge sits.
The tram is just one example of Taylor”s ingenuity in putting the village together. Running through the scenery just below the ski lodge is a river and a waterfall that leads to a lake. Taylor put blue lights underneath blue tinsel to create the waterworks. He said it took him about a day to assemble because of the difficulty getting the strands to stay together.
Taylor spends a week setting up the village and scenery before Thanksgiving, and puts everything away in a day”s time around New Year”s Day. He said he does it in part because he loves Christmas.
“I started doing this when the doctor took away my license,” Taylor said.
Taylor stopped driving 15 years ago because of a seizure disorder for which he is now taking medication. His sister and niece, neighbors, and friends come to see his handiwork, which has served him as a hobby since then.
“I started out with nine pieces in a box I bought at Costco,” Taylor said.
Circling one end of the village is an HO-scale train, which has been a mainstay since the beginning. Beyond it is a building Taylor said he repainted to convert it from a radio station to a hospital, “because every town needs a hospital, a police station and a fire station. “
Next year, Taylor said he plans to start putting the names of his family members and ancestors on the houses.
A miniature Santa and reindeer can be seen making their rounds, suspended by fishing line over the town.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com, or call her directly at 263-5636 ext. 37.
